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CHAPTER XV
In the spring, Kit Carson proposed a different plan of operations; he went to hunt on the streams in the vicinage of his winter's camp with only a single companion. The Utah Indians, into whose country he came, were also friends of Carson, and, unmolested in his business, his efforts were crowned with abundant success. He took his furs to Robideau fort, and with a party of five went to Grand River, and thence to Brown's Hole on Green River for the winter.
In the following spring he went to the Utah country, to the streams that flow into Great Salt Lake on the South, which was rich in furs and of exceeding beauty, with the points of grand old snow mountains ever in sight, around him.
From here he went to the New Fork, and as it was afterward described by a party for whom Carson was the guide, we shall not give the description at this point of our narrative. Again he trapped among the Utahs, and disposed of his furs at Robideau Fort; but now the prices did not please him. Beaver fur was at a discount, and the trade of the trapper becoming unprofitable.
Baird, in his general report upon mammals, uses the following language, which is appropriate in this connection:
"The beaver once inhabited all of the globe lying in the northern temperate zone; yet from Europe, China, and all the eastern portion of the United States, it has been entirely exterminated, and a war so universal and relentless has been waged upon this defenceless animal, his great intelligence has been so generally opposed by the intelligence of man, it has seemed certain, unless some kind providence should interpose, that the castor, like its congener, the Castorides, would soon be found only in a fossil state.
"Happily that providence did interpose, through a certain ingenious somebody, who first suggested the use of silk in the place of fur for the covering of hats. The beaver were not yet exterminated from Western America, and now, since they are not "worth killing," in those inhospitable regions, where there is no encouragement for American enterprise or cupidity, we may hope that the beaver will there retain existence, in a home exclusively their own.
"The price of beaver skins has so much diminished that they were offered to some of the party at twenty-five cents by the bale."
Carson had pursued the business of trapping for eight years, and his life had been one of unceasing toil, of extreme hardship, full of danger, yet withal full of interest. More than this, while the lack of early scientific training had prevented him from making that record of his travels, which would have given the world the benefit of his explorations, he had treasured in his memory the knowledge of localities, of their conditions, and seasons, and advantages, which in the good time coming, would enable him to associate his labors with another, who possessed the scientific attainments which Carson lacked, and who with Carson's invaluable assistance would come to be known world wide as a bold explorer, and who, but for Carson's experience, where such experience was a chief requisite to success, might have failed in his first efforts in the grand enterprise entrusted to him.
Carson knew the general features of the country, its mountains, plains, and rivers, and the minor points of animal and vegetable productions, from the head waters of the "monarch of rivers," to the mouth of the Colorado, and from the southern Arkansas to the Columbia, better, perhaps, than any one living, though yet but twenty-five years of age.
We left Carson at Robideau Fort, tired of the pursuit of trapping, as soon as it had become unprofitable, and while there, he arranged with three or four other trappers, to come down to Bent's Fort. The trip was like others made at this season, through a country where the rifle would supply food for the party, and arriving at Bent's Fort, where his name was already well-known, Carson could not long be idle. He engaged himself to Messrs. Bent and St. Vrain, as hunter to the fort, preferring this by far to the idea of seeking employment nearer civilized life. Indeed no situation could have pleased him better, if we may judge from the fact that he continued in it for eight years, and until the connection with his employers was broken by the death of one of the partners, Col. Bent.
Gov. Bent, since appointed to the office of chief magistrate of New Mexico, by the United States Government, had been killed by Mexican Indians, and was universally mourned by Americans and Indians wherever he was known. Mr. St. Vrain, the other partner, was active during the Mexican war, since the date of which we write, still lives, and is esteemed, as a father, by many an early mountaineer. Carson owed him gratitude for kindly sympathy and words of counsel, when yet a youth he was commencing his mountain life, and Dr. Peters, the first biographer of Kit Carson, dedicates his book to Col. St. Vrain, asserting that he was the first to discover and direct Carson's talents to the path in which they were employed. For both of these gentlemanly proprietors, Carson cherished a warm friendship, nor was there ever an unpleasant occurrence between them.
When game was plenty, he supplied the forty mouths to be filled with ease, but when it was scarce, his task was sometimes difficult, but skill and experience enabled him to triumph over every obstacle.
It is not strange that with such long experience Carson became the most skillful of hunters, and won the name of the "Nestor of the Rocky Mountains." Among the Indians he had earned the undisputed title of "Monarch of the Prairies."
But while he killed thousands of elk, deer, and antelope, nor disdained the rabbit and the grouse, and took the wild goose on the wing, of all the game of beast or bird, he liked the best to hunt the buffalo, for there was an excitement in the chase of that noble animal which aroused his spirits to the highest pitch of excitement.
Assuredly, Christopher Carson's is "a life out of the usual routine, and checkered with adventures which have sorely tested the courage and endurance of this wonderful man." Col. St. Vrain, in the preface to Peters' Life of Carson, says,
"Entering upon his life work at the age of seventeen, choosing now to think for himself, nor follow the lead of those who would detain him in a quiet life, while he felt the restless fire 'in his bones,' that forbade his burying his energy in merely mechanical toil, he had yet been directed in his choice, by the fitness for it the pursuits of youth had given, and spurning the humdrum monotony of the shop, gave himself entirely to what would most aid him in attaining the profession he had chosen. We must admire such spirit in a youth, for it augurs well for the energy and will power of the manhood; therefore, when the biographer says of Christopher Carson, that the neighbors who knew him, predicted an uncommon life in the child with whom they hunted, and conceded to him positions, as well as privileges, that were not accorded to common men, with his life till thirty-three before us, we feel that he has fulfilled the hope of early promise, with a noble manhood."
We have followed Carson's pathway, without much of detail, to the localities where he practised the profession he had chosen, until we saw him leave it because it ceased longer to afford compensation for his toil, and during as long a period we have written of his quiet pursuit of the, to him, pleasant, but laborious life of a hunter; unless we must class the latter eight years with the former, and assume each as a part of the profession he had chosen.
In all, with perhaps the exception of a few weeks at Santa Fe, when still in his minority, we have found him ever strong to resist the thousand temptations to evil with which his pathway was beset, and which drew other men away. Strong ever in the maintenance of the integrity of his manhood, even when the convivial circle and the game had a brief fascination for him, they taught him the lesson which he needed to learn, that only by earnest resistance, can evil be overcome; and thus he was enabled to admonish others against those temptations which had once overcome even his powers of resistance; and so he learned to school himself to the idea, that good comes ever through the temptation to evil to all those who have the courage to extract it.
We have followed him up and down all the streams of our great central western wilds, and indicated the store of geographic knowledge which he had acquired by hard experience before they were known so far to any one besides; and then for eight years more we have seen that this knowledge was digested and reviewed in the social circle with other mountain trappers, and beside the lonely mountain river, and 'neath the wild, steep cliff; or on the grassy bottom, or the barren plain, and in the less sterile places where the sage hen found a covert, and up among the oak openings, and in the gigantic parks, where, as a hunter, he revisited old haunts.
In all his toilsome and adventurous enterprises, while he sought to benefit himself, he never turned away, nor failed to lend a helping hand to a needy, suffering brother, or to encourage one who needed such a lesson, to turn his youth to the most account; and if affectionate regard is a recompense for such service, he had his compensation, as he passed along the path he had marked out for himself, not from the white man alone, but from the Indian who everywhere came to look upon Kit Carson as his friend.
The Camanches, the Arapahoes, the Utahs, and the Cheyennes, besides several smaller tribes, knew him personally in the hunt, and he had sat by their camp fires, and dandled their children, and sung to them the ditty,
"What makes the lamb love Mary so?
The eager children cry;
Why Mary loves the lamb, you know,
And that's the reason why."
The Indians feared, and reverenced, and loved him, and that this latter may be proved to the reader we relate the following story of private history, nor will it be esteemed out of taste:
The powerful Sioux had come from the north beyond their usual hunting grounds, and had had skirmishes with several Indian bands, some of whom sent for Carson to the Upper Arkansas to come over and help them drive back the Sioux. As the larder at the fort was full, he consented to go with the war-painted Camanche messengers to a camp of their tribe, united with a band of Arapahoes. They told him the Sioux had a thousand warriors and many rifles, and they feared them, but knew that the "Monarch of the Prairies" could overcome them. Carson sat in council with the chiefs, and finally, instead of encouraging them to fight, persuaded them to peace, and acted so successfully the part of mediator, that the Sioux consented to retire from the hunting grounds of the Camanches when the season was over, and they separated without a collision.
It was while engaged as hunter for Messrs. Bent and St. Vrain, Carson took to himself an Indian wife, by whom he had a daughter still living, and who forms the connecting link between his past hardships, and his present greatness; for that he is emphatically a great man, the whole civilized world has acknowledged.
The mother died soon after her birth, and Carson feeling that his rude cabin was scarcely the place to rear his child, determined, when of a suitable age, to take her to St. Louis, and secure for her those advantages of education which circumstances had denied to him; and accordingly, when his engagement at the fort had expired, he determined to go to St. Louis for that purpose, embracing on the route the opportunity of visiting the home of his boyhood, which he had not seen for sixteen years.
Of course he found everything changed. Many of those whom he had known as men and heads of families, were now grown old, while more had died off; but by those to whom he was made known, he was recognized with a heartiness of welcome which brought tears to his eyes, though his heart was saddened at the changes which time had wrought. His fame had preceded him, and his welcome was therefore doubly cordial, for he had more than verified the promise of his youth.
Thence he proceeded to St. Louis, with the intention of placing his daughter at school, but here, to his great amazement, he found himself a lion; for the advent of such a man in such a city, which had so often rung with his deeds of daring and suffering, could not be permitted to remain among its citizens unknown or unrecognized. He was courted and fêted and though gratified at the attentions showered upon him, found himself so thoroughly out of his element, that he longed to return to more pleasant and more familiar scenes, his old hunting grounds.
Having accomplished the object of his visit to St. Louis, in placing his daughter under proper guardianship, he left the city, carrying with him pleasing, because merited remembrances of the attentions paid to him, and leaving behind him impressions of the most favorable character.
Soon after he reached St. Louis, he had the good fortune to fall in with Lieut. Fremont, who was there organizing a party for the exploration of the far western country, as yet unknown, and who was anxiously awaiting the arrival of Captain Drips, a well known trader and trapper, who had been highly recommended to him as a guide.
Kit Carson's name and fame were familiar as household words to Fremont, and he gladly availed himself of his proffered services in lieu of those of Capt. Drips. It did not take long for two such men as John C. Fremont and Kit Carson to become thoroughly acquainted with each other, and the accidental meeting at St. Louis resulted in the cementing of a friendship which has never been impaired, – won as it was on the one part by fidelity, truthfulness, integrity, and courage, united to vast experience and consummate skill in the prosecution of the duty he had assumed – on the other by every quality which commands honour, regard, esteem, and high personal devotion.
And now Carson's life has commenced in earnest, for heretofore he has only been fitting himself to live. His name is embodied in the archives of our country's history, and no one has been more ready to accord to him the credit he so well earned, as has he who had the good fortune to secure, at the same time, the services of the most experienced guide of his day, and the devotion of a friend.
Lieut. Fremont had instructions to explore and report upon the country lying between the frontiers of Missouri and the South Pass in the Rocky Mountains, on the line of the Kansas and Great Platte Rivers, and with his party, leaving St. Louis on the 22nd of May, 1842, by steamboat for Chouteau's Landing on the Missouri, near the mouth of the Kansas, at a point twelve miles beyond at Chouteau's trading post, he encamped there to complete his arrangements for this important expedition.
CHAPTER XVI
Fremont was delayed several days at Chouteau's Landing, by the state of the weather, which prevented the necessary astronomical observations, but finally all his arrangements being completed, and the weather permitting, the party started in the highest spirit, and filled with anticipations of an exciting and adventurous journey.
He had collected in the neighborhood of St. Louis twenty-one men, principally Creole and Canadian voyageurs, who had become familiar with prairie life in the service of the fur companies in the Indian country. Mr. Charles Preuss, a native of Germany, was his assistant in the topographical part of the survey. L. Maxwell, of Kaskaskia, had been engaged as hunter, and Christopher Carson as guide.
Mr. Cyprian Chouteau, to whose kindness, during their stay at his house, all were much indebted, accompanied them several miles on their way, until they met an Indian, whom he had engaged to conduct them on the first thirty or forty miles, where he was to consign them to the ocean prairie, which stretched, without interruption, almost to the base of the Rocky Mountains.
During the journey, it was the customary practice to encamp an hour or two before sunset, when the carts were disposed so as to form a sort of barricade around a circle some eighty yards in diameter. The tents were pitched, and the horses hobbled and turned loose to graze; and but a few minutes elapsed before the cooks of the messes, of which there were four, were busily engaged in preparing the evening meal. At nightfall, the horses, mules, and oxen, were driven in and picketed – that is, secured by a halter, of which one end was tied to a small steel-shod picket, and driven into the ground; the halter being twenty or thirty feet long, which enabled them to obtain a little food during the night. When they had reached a part of the country where such a precaution became necessary, the carts being regularly arranged for defending the camp, guard was mounted at eight o'clock, consisting of three men, who were relieved every two hours; the morning watch being horse guard for the day. At daybreak, the camp was roused, the animals turned loose to graze, and breakfast generally over between six and seven o'clock, when they resumed their march, making regularly a halt at noon for one or two hours. Such was usually the order of the day, except when accident of country forced a variation, which, however, happened but rarely.
They reached the ford of the Kansas late in the afternoon of the 14th, where the river was two hundred and thirty yards wide, and commenced immediately preparations for crossing. The river had been swollen by the late rains, and was sweeping by with an angry current, yellow and turbid as the Missouri. Up to this point, the road traveled was a remarkably fine one, well beaten and level – the usual road of a prairie country. By this route, the ford was one hundred miles from the mouth of the Kansas river, on reaching which several mounted men led the way into the stream, to swim across. The animals were driven in after them, and in a few minutes all had reached the opposite bank in safety, with the exception of the oxen, which swam some distance down the river, and, returning to the right bank, were not got over until the next morning. In the meantime, the carts had been unloaded and dismantled, and an India-rubber boat, which had been brought for the survey of the Platte River, placed in the water. The boat was twenty feet long and five broad, and on it were placed the body and wheels of a cart, with the load belonging to it, and three men with paddles.
The velocity of the current, and the inconvenient freight, rendering it difficult to be managed, Basil Lajeunesse, one of the best swimmers, took in his teeth a line attached to the boat, and swam ahead in order to reach a footing as soon as possible, and assist in drawing her over. In this manner, six passages had been successfully made, and as many carts with their contents, and a greater portion of the party, deposited on the left bank; but night was drawing near, and in his great anxiety to complete the crossing before darkness set in, he put on the boat, contrary to the advice of Carson, the last two carts with their loads. The consequence was, the boat was capsized, and everything on board was in a moment floating down stream. They were all, however, eventually recovered, but not without great trouble. Carson and Maxwell, who had been in the water nearly all the succeeding day, searching for the lost articles, were taken so ill in consequence of the prolonged exposure, the party was obliged to lie by another day to enable them to recruit, for to proceed without them would have been folly.
The dense timber which surrounded their camp, interfering with astronomical observations, and the wet and damaged stores requiring exposure to the sun, the tents were struck early the next day but one after this disaster and the party moved up the river about seven miles, where they camped upon a handsome open prairie, some twenty feet above the water, and where the fine grass afforded a luxurious repast to the weary animals. They lay in camp here two days, during which time the men were kept busy in drying the provisions, painting the cart covers, and otherwise completing their equipage, until the afternoon when powder was distributed to them, and they spent some hours in firing at a mark, as they were now fairly in the Indian country, and it began to be time to prepare for the chances of the wilderness.
